[Bub13]

It's just after the trade deadline, and yes, there were trades. Do you want to hear them? No, of course you don't. I don't want to read about them either. Suffice it enough to say that another pitcher I noodled after just now was Portland's Mike Michalowski, a 30-year-old righty, whose best features are his control and his wonky forkball. He's a small man for a starter, at 5'8" and 180 pounds, and it's no surprise that he has the stamina of a kitten. Still, I enquired after him and his $9.4M salary (for six more years, to boot), and was told the cost would be either Adam Groff or Jeremy Dunklee. Two days later and I'm still calling Portland GM Mike Johnston so I can laugh a him until he hangs up on me. Anyway, Angel Pagan would have nixed the deal after all, so no use wondering "what if." So the Pioneers turned around and dealt him to the Nats for a backup catcher, which actually does gripe my drawers. Ergh. (Btw, Portland is 43-65 and Washington is 48-59, so obv this is season-changing stuff for someone.)

......

August 2-4 @ MIAMI
We took three from the Marlins in April, when they were struggling. Now they're pretty good, at 59-48 and 4 games up on the Jays for first place. It won't last--Marlins divisional leads never do--but it's fun to see some new blood in there. Ricky Beard (.343/24/64) and Jason Molnar (.305/24/88) lead the #2 offense in the AL (guess who's first!), and malcontent Darius Arrington ("Trade me right effing now!") is on the DL, so everyone's happy. Pitching and defense are lagging way behind the offense, so maybe we can take adavantage of that. Meaning...expect three shutouts, of course.

HAW pitchers: Bobby Piccirillo (0-0, 0.00) / Leon Casillas (13-5, 3.76) / Eric Jones (14-3, 2.88)
MIA pitchers: Levi Brady (10-9, 4.02) / Jake Marker (7-12, 4.25) / Corey Downes (7-8, 4.85)

#110: LOSS 2-4 ... B Pics is fair enough through seven, but we can only manage four hits off a trio of Marlins pitchers...Dunklee homers again
#111: LOSS 2-4 ... only five hits this time, as we continue to make this B-level pitching staff look like world beaters...Casillas goes all 8, but 2 HR doom his efforts
#112: LOSS 5-7 ... Jones is ugly, and it was 7-0 before I'd finished my first beer...we got 9 hits, so yay for improvements

Well that was an ass series. No one got hurt, is all I want to say about that.... ELSEWHERE: Don't look now, but Oakland's won six straight.... Giants LF Alfredo Gazca is the latest to embrace the streaking fad, having hit safely now in 21 straight.... Hot and Not: Detroit has won five in a row, and is now up on the Brewers by six; the Dodgers are cold, winning four of their last eleven, and are now just a half game ahead of the Padres.... Individual Spotlight: Hey Cleveland, I see you sitting in the Central division basement, at 42-69. Tough days, huh. And I know they just got tougher when favorite son Greg 'Tornado' Tackett suffered his latest in a string of long-term injuries, this one a damaged thumb that'll keep him out for a couple of months. Tackett, the first overall pick from 2032, was billed since birth as a power-hitting, do-it-all outfielder (well, his fielding is just good-enough, so we'll leave that there), so you couldn't blame Indians fans for thinking they had a lefty-swinging Albert/Joey Belle (without the headaches) on their hands, someone to build around. And they do--when he's healthy. On the field, he's a 7-8 WAR guy who's capable of 40+ home run power and is a career .285 hitter. But injuries, oh so many injuries, which have limited his games played to: 106, 40, 150, 137, 26, 108, 118, 138, and 59. He's 30 now, with a year left on his contract, and you'd not be wrong to think that the hapless Indians should consider dealing him this off-season and going all in on a rebuild. But hey, egos are involved! So they'll probably hang on to him and suck again next year and lose him for nothing. And he'll get hurt again, leaving us all with thoughts of what could have been.


August 6-8 vs NY YANKEES
We can't help but play better against the cellar-dwelling Yanks, right? Terrible hitting, subpar pitching, their best pitcher done for this year (and probably next), but hey they're pretty good on defense. It'll be interesting to see how many home runs Tony Flores (sitting at 46) will hit against us. NONE I HOPE.

HAW pitchers: Rob Hart (10-7, 5.12) / Mike Messinger (14-3, 2.42) / Bobby Piccirillo (0-1, 5.14)
NYY pitchers: Pat Teer (1-4, 6.83) / Daniel Brooke (8-5, 4.29) / Bob Bull (5-4, 4.77)

#113: WIN 32-2 ... NOT a misprint...some stats: 30 hits, 13 walks, 8 doubles, 7 HR...reliever Bobby Amico goes 1.2 IP, 11 H, 13 R, 6 BB...it was 15-0 before we added a casual 13 more in the 7th
#114: WIN 2-0 ... so boring after yesterday's laugher...Robertson 2-for-4 with a homer...Messinger yields just 4 hits over 8, strikes out 9, for his 15th win
#115: WIN 10-4 ... Piccarillo is still failing to impress (9 H, 4 R through 6 IP), but we score for him today, getting 12 hits and 5 walks

That first game should've been called after four: Skunk Rule.... Piccirillo hasn't looked good (5.54 ERA) in his first two starts. He'll get one more before I try someone else. Maybe Frank Soto (in my pen now), or recalling Gouweleeuw (awful for us early, but a 2.68 ERA in 18 AAA starts), or maybe Luis Cortez (no stuff at all, but wicked movement and control). We'll see.... ELSEWHERE: Oakland lost their last game, and is 16.5 games behind us. Maybe they don't challenge for the division, but they're firmly in the wildcard hunt, just a couple behind Milwaukee and several up on everyone else.... Hot and Not: The Cubs have won 8 of 10, and despite being 55-59 they're only 6 games out of first in the NL Central. Rays 2B Tim Ost was leading the AL in hitting just over a month ago. But he hit .183 in July and is hitting .125 in August, dropping him well out of the running for the title.... Individual Spotlight: KC shortstop Cody Kruer has 16 triples this season, and is on pace to become the first AL player to hit 20 in a season since Curtis Granderson hit 23 back in 2007. The 23-year-old is in his first season in the bigs, and his slash of .233/.308/.386 (with one steal) doesn't suggest a speedy line drive hitter. In fact, he looks like a low-contact groundballer, like a career backup utility infielder. Still, I'm pulling for him.


August 9-11 vs BOSTON
Treading water at 57-57, 7.5 behind Miami and 5 behind Oakland for the second wildcard spot. Decent hitting, bad rotation, good bullpen, blah blah blah. Enough of that. The best thing about the Sox is that every year--EVERY YEAR--the clubhouse is a freaking mess. This year they're feuding. Last year the feuded. And so on: it's feuds all the way down. There's no team leadership, half the team dislikes manager Kris Harvey, and everybody is mad at the handful of slackers and selfish oafs who keep hogging the boom box in the locker room. Owner Matthew Zunker, however, is quite happy, for no apparent reason (losing money, not currently a playoff team, etc etc). Oh well...where would we be without bitterness in Boston, eh?

HAW pitchers: Leon Casillas (13-6, 4.80) / Eric Jones (14-4, 3.23) / Rob Hart (11-7, 4.99)
BOS pitchers: Manny Gomez (9-8, 4.18) / Orlando Amaya (3-2, 4.59) / Robby Liantonio (8-7, 4.85)

#116: WIN 12-0 ... Two HR each for McGowan (5, 6) and Mercedes (36, 37), and a complete game 4-hitter for Casillas...McArthur tweaks a calf, but should be okay
#117: LOSS 5-11 ... it was too good to last, as we're outhit 21-5...Jones is worryingly terrible again, and his ERA has gone up nearly a run over his last five starts
#118: WIN 7-6 ... two in the 9th and Courtney's run on an infield error in the 10th bring home the win...Hart is solid through 6, picking up some of Jones' slack these last couple of weeks

Two wins out of three and no major injuries. Reason enough to be happy with these results.... It can't all be sunshine, tho, as Eric Jones' last five starts have yielded thus: 2-3, 7.75 ERA, 26.2 IP, 39 H, 23 R.... Dunklee and Mercedes both have 100 RBI.... ELSEWHERE: both batting title races have tightened up considerably. KC's Juan Garcia leads at .331, four points ahead of two others and seven points ahead of three more. In the NL, SD's Tony Solar still leads, but is clinging to just a two point lead over Washington's Travis Tanner.... Hot and Not: Richmond's Josh Wall, a six-time all-star, is settling into a new role as the league's most dangerous (and highest paid, at $24M) pinch hitter. Consider this slash: .431/.525/.765 in 66 PA. On the 'Not' side, a trio of Twins starters--Tyson Murphy, Jesse Squire, and Chris Wead--are bringing down the whole squad: 12 starts, 2-8, 68 IP, 89 H, 48 K, 31 BB, 10.47 ERA.... Individual Spotlight: Milwaukee's Jake Heberer is the team's starting LF, and although he's hitting just .243, he does have 17 HR and brings a positive vibe to the clubhouse. At 38, he still has enough motor to be a plus in the field, although he's not the star CF he once was. He's 38 now, in his 14th season, and will retire soon with decent career numbers: over 52 WAR, 1600 hits, nearly 300 HR, .274 career hitter. I bring him up b/c I drafted him in the 6th round way back in 2024 with Richmond, and he looked decent-but-not-great until he reached AAA in 2027, where he hit .304 with 26 HR in half a season. He finished the year in the majors, and looked okay but with no hint of what was to come. In 2028, playing in the shadow of 40+ HR-hitting RF Manny Sanchez, he turned a good season into an incredible August/September run. I swear he hit 20 homers and batted over .350 those two months, and his final line of .311/37/104 earned him a surprise MVP award and a hefty new contract. He never did come near those overall numbers again, although he did hit 30 HR twice more, and regularly batted in the .280-.290 range. I traded for him when I moved to Brooklyn, and who knows, maybe I'll bring him to Hawaii next year. Injuries curtailed his career numbers, but he still has a career to be proud of.